Pope Francis corruption fury: Tie them to a rock and throw them in the sea

Here is an article by Heather Saul, The Independent | Nov 12, 2013

This message is most relevant to the hierarchy, clergy, religious and the politicians.

My comments are in brackets in italics

Pope Francis delivered an impassioned sermon on Monday, during which he quoted a passage from the bible that said some sinners deserve to be tied to a rock and cast into the sea. 

[First in queue is K.M. Mani; next Ooman Chandi followed by a number of Kerala Archbishops, Bishops, many priests, few nuns and most politicians.]

The Argentinian religious leader said Christians who donated money to the church but stole from the state were leading a "double life" and were sinners who should be punished. 

[Pope is referring to the people in the above list.]

Quoting from the Gospel of St Luke in the New Testament, he said: "Jesus says 'It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea'," because "where there is deceit, the Spirit of God cannot be". 

In most Bishop’s Houses and presbyteries ‘the spirit of God’ cannot be.]

Without directly mentioning corruption within the Catholic Church, in his sermon he described those involved in corrupt practices as "whitewashed tombs", explaining that "they appear beautiful from the outside, but inside they are full of dead bones and putrefaction." He said, "A life based on corruption is varnished putrefaction." 

[Red/purple sashes or long cassocks or white starched khadi shirts and dhotis cannot camouflage the putrefaction within.]

On Friday, he also condemned corruption, asserting parents who earned through bribes or corrupt practices had "lost their dignity", and fed their children "unclean bread".

[Jose K Mani and his sisters and their children must be eating ‘unclean bread.’]

He said: "Some of you might say: 'But this man only did what everyone does!'. But no, not everyone! Some company administrators, some public administrators, some government administrators... perhaps there are not even very many. But it's that attitude of the shortcut, of the most comfortable way to earn a living. 

"These poor people who have lost their dignity in the habit of bribes take with them not the money they have earned, but only their lack of dignity!" 

He compared receiving bribes as "like a drug" as people become "dependent" on the habit of bribes. 

The Pope has made clear his intentions to tackle corruption within the Vatican and held a meeting with the Church's highest ranking whistle blower in October, after telling the Church in May that it "must go forward... with a heart of poverty, not a heart of investment or of a businessman" reminding it that "St Peter did not have a bank account".

[How many of Kerala’s Catholic Cardinals and Bishops have read this last paragraph? I have a strong suspicion that they all must be praying for the early demise of this sincere and holy man to continue with their empire building.]

Quotes/thoughts that come to mind on K.M. Mani’s fall:

“All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts       absolutely.” 

Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887.

"Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer". 

                              William Shakespeare: King Henry

            

       “The evil that men do lives after them; 

        the good is oft interred with their bones.” 

                                       William Shakespeare: Julius Caesar.

Biju Ramesh:

Friends, Mallus, countrymen, lend me your ears.

I come to bury Mani, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interrèd with their bones.

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again

There are many folklores associated with this nursery rhyme. The rhyme refers to King Richard III and his defeat at the battle of Bosworth. Others believe that Humpty Dumpty was based on the sudden catastrophic fall of Cardinal Wolsey from Henry VIII era. The cardinal became ill on the way to his trial and soon died. He was Henry’s most trusted friend for a long time until Ann Boleyn appeared on the scene and turned Henry against him. No one expected him to be toppled so quickly.

Sr. Abhaya’s sainthood and the miracle of Ex. Minister K.M. Mani’s resignation

I am back after a long break.

The immediate provocation to restart my ‘musings’ is the ‘forced’ resignation of K.M. Mani as minister of Law and Finance from the present Omman Chandi government of Kerala.

Strong rumors have been floating around regarding the involvement of Mani in the cover up of the murder of Sr. Abhaya and in protecting the priests. nuns and even someone at the Episcopal level suspected of involvement in the case.  The story doing the rounds in those days was that the ecclesiastical crowd went to the C.B.I. Director along the following path – Mani – Kerala Chief Minister K. Karunakaran – Indian Prime Minister Rao – C.B.I. director. That was how the clerical establishment manipulated to get the entire investigation derailed, not once but thrice. The case will go on and on until perhaps the accused and episcopal kingpin are dead. Neither Sr. Abhaya nor her financially poor parents will ever get justice from the notoriously corrupt political or investigative agencies of India.

However, there is something called ‘natural justice’. This is a mysterious force. It is similar to the mysteries of the Holy Trinity (One God in Three Gods), virgin birth, and the bodily ascension of Jesus to ‘heaven’.  Unlike these mysteries which no learned theologian has been ever able to cogently explain to the understanding of the common man, natural justice is a mystery in the sense that it is something that we experience all around us on a daily basis. If A does something good to B, B may not return the favor, but it may be C who does something good to A. If I murder someone, there is a strong possibility that I will get my comeuppance. It may not necessarily be from that person’s relatives but from a totally strange person. These rewards or retaliations may not happen in every case, but from experience, there is a strong statistical possibility of this happening. It may not happen even in one’s lifetime. Often it is the children who are the beneficiaries of their ancestors’ good deeds and vice versa. ‘Sins of the fathers often visit the children’.

Is Mani getting his comeuppance for siding with the forces of evil in the Abhya murder case?

Mani has been in politics for more than half a century. He is rightly regarded as a crafty politician by many. He has become the blue-eyed boy of Kerala Catholic clergy and hierarchy. He has always been for them, acceding to their demands and solving their problems. Apparently, he has helped clerics and nuns involved in sexapades, pedophilia and murder by using his political clout. In turn, the Kerala hierarchy has been urging the faithful to support Mani and his party the Kerala Congress.

Mani, his son Jose K. Mani and recently his wife Kuttiamma have often found a place on the podium during most functions of the Kottayam Knanaya diocese along with the usual crowd of justices and chevaliers. Their photos are flashed across the diocesan publication “Apna Desh”. There is no doubt that the Knanaya community and its clergy is a grateful group. I have been told reliably that some members of the community have achieved high positions in different wings of the government, not so much through their own merit, rather by pulls and pushes by the ever manipulative Mani.

The fall of this man from the high pedestal he propelled himself through backstabbing and money power could not even be imagined a couple of month back. This is nothing short of a miracle. I am quite convinced that this miracle happened through the intercession of Sr. Abhaya. This is part of the mystery of natural justice.

Mani’s fall is all the more hurting because he has fallen from very high. And that too for a paltry bribe of some 15 lakh rupees. According to P.C. George, his nemesis, Mani has accumulated wealth to tune of 15000 crores of rupees in various parts of the world. Time will tell how far he or his posterity will enjoy this windfall of corruption. Here the mystery of natural justice will hopefully unravel.

Sr./St.Abhaya

Back to Abhaya and the miracle of Mani’s resignation through her intervention.

It is high time for the Kottayam Knanaya diocesan authorities to initiate the canonization of Sr. Abhaya. If Sr. Aphonsa can become a saint because of her suffering and dedication to Jesus, Sr. Abhaya has all the more right to sainthood for having protected her chastity and womanhood from lustful clerics. She must be regarded as a martyr like St. Maria Goretti who was only 11 years when she was stabbed 14 times to death while defending her chastity from a would-be rapist by name Alessandro. Besides, like St. Alphonsa, St. Abhaya can become a source of enormous riches for the church. There is one hurdle in the process of canonization that is often difficult to overcome – a miracle through the intercession of the proposed candidate for sainthood. In Sr. Abhaya’s case this intervention/intercession/involvement has already happened in the resignation and fall of Mani, the so-called giant of Kerala politics – more of an ogre with feet of clay.

This one miracle should satisfy the Catholic Church’s criteria for declaring Abhaya a saint.

There are many aspirants from the Knanaya community to sainthood. I suspect that in this race some less deserving candidates are already laying the foundations for their canonization post-mortem. Unless Sr. Abhaya’s case is fast tracked for sainthood like John Paul II, I fear the Church will end up with a St. Steffy as patron saint of women who have undergone hymenoplasty.

St. Maria Goretti 

Why and How did Christianity become so popular?

Edward Gibbon, in his classical work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, gives two reasons for its decline and fall: Christianity (internal) and Barbarism (external).  Edward Gibbon To understand the role of Christianity, one needs to go back to the two developments after the death (?) of Jesus. One was the takeover by James, the brother of Jesus, of the movement started by him; the other was the version of Christianity conceived and preached to the gentiles in the Greco-Roman world by the self-proclaimed apostle Paul as revealed to him by Jesus in ‘visions’ and through ‘disembodied voices’. During the period A D 66-70 the Jews revolted against Roman rule. This was brutally put down by the Romans and in the process they burned down and completely destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. James and the followers of the Jesus movement were either killed or fled the massacre and the movement died a natural death. Had the Temple not been destroyed, perhaps Christianity would have been a continuation of Jesus movement and Paul would have been a foot-note in history. The fact remains that Paul’s version of Christianity remained and continued to flourish. What was a Jewish messianic sect became a Universal Salvation religion. The corner stone of Paul’s belief system was the divinity of Jesus. He saw Jesus as a saviour, a path for people to follow by which they might obtain eternal life. The followers of Paul who refused to accept Roman religious practices were killed. These were regarded as martyrs who were assured of heaven. (Virgins had 60 times the reward of ordinary Christians in heaven, but martyrs received rewards a hundredfold!). Christianity argued that ‘suffering is noble’ and offered a better world in future. Hence it became popular among the lower classes: the slaves, the labourers and the urban poor. Emperor Constantine (274–337). Emperor from 306 to 337. In A D 312 Constantine became Emperor and the fortunes of Christianity changed. Persecution was replaced by favour. He made Sunday observation compulsory. He started the practice of collecting relics to install in shrines. The spread of Paul’s version of Christianity was also helped by absorbing pagan practices where it was felt to serve its purpose. December 25, the feast day of god Mithras, became the date of Nativity; the original Sunday observance was conceived as a day of respect for the sun, not for Jesus. The terms ‘vicar’ and 'diocese' were borrowed from the Emperor’s administrative reforms. The original December 25th Virgin Birth There was another reason for the growth and spread of Christianity. People thought that religious solidarity would help the declining fortunes of the empire. This meant a crucial change in the reorganisation of society. This change resulted in the rise of the priesthood.

The establishment of Christianity as a religion by Apostle Paul

Jesus believed himself to be a messiah in the kingly line of David sent by God to establish his kingdom on earth among his chosen people, the Jews. He did not start a religion after his name.

He was put to death on the cross. The movement he started was taken up and led by his brother James. However, it was smothered by the alternative movement started by Paul which became the official Christianity of today.

Earlier, I have given a brief CV of Paul. (April 8, 2015)

Around the year A.D. 36 Paul had a “conversion” experience in which he claimed to have “seen” Jesus in a “vision”. He said that he had received both a revelation and a commission. The revelation was that ‘Jesus was the heavenly exalted Christ’; the commission was that he, Paul, was to preach the good news of ‘salvation through faith in Jesus to the Gentiles’. who were the non-Jews

Paul was a contemporary of Jesus. Yet, he never mentions the crucifixion of Jesus.  His connections to Jesus was based on “his own visionary experiences” in which he claimed to have seen Jesus many years after crucifixion. He also claimed to hear a disembodied ‘voice’ that he identified as words of Jesus.

What Paul preached and taught:

·         Jesus was a divine pre-existent heavenly being.

·         He was created as the first born of all creation.

·         He existed in the form of God and was equal to God.

·         The world was brought into existence by God through the agency of Christ.

·         He emptied himself, took the human form and was born of a woman and sent into this world from heaven.

·         The purpose of his life on earth was to live without sin and die on the cross as atonement for the sins of the world.

·         God then raised Christ from the dead and transformed him back into his glorious heavenly body.

·         Christ then ascended into heaven and is seated in power and glory at the right hand of God.

·         Those who accept the atoning sacrifice of Christ are forgiven of all their sins.

·         At the second coming of Christ, both the living and the dead would rise in the air to meet Christ in the clouds of heaven.

(T: p259-262)

Let us now have a look at the Apostle’s Creed recited at Catholic masses.

The Apostles Creed
1.      I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2.      I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3.      He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4.      He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell.
5.      On the third day he rose again.
6.      He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
7.      I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.  As you can observe, much of this creed is taken from Paul’s teachings based on his ‘visions’ and the ‘disembodied voice’ of Jesus.  Re-enactment of the Last Supper during Catholic Mass Just like the ‘resurrection’ and physical ‘ascension’ of Christ, the re-enactment of the ‘Last Supper’ during Christian mass has become another corner stone of the Christian belief system. It was Paul who wrote that the followers of Jesus should re-enact ‘the Lord’s Supper’ in which they would drink wine as ‘blood’ of Jesus and eat bread as his ‘body’. Improper observance of this meal could cause illness and even death. (T: p264) [More on this when we get a chance to discuss the mythological origins of Christian practices and rituals] To conclude: Jesus Christ is not the founder of Christianity. It is Paul of Tarsus, known commonly as Apostle Paul, who established Christianity as we know it today in the name of Christ, based on what he claimed as ‘visions’ of Christ during which he heard the ‘disembodied’ words of Christ.

Summary of the discussion so far on the historical (human) Jesus.

Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian. 

He was born around 4 B.C. His mother was Mary, his father unknown. There is mention in contemporary writings of the time that a Roman soldier by name Panthera was his biological father. His conception took place when Rome sent its soldiers to put down a Jewish revolt. There are many clues to suggest that he was regarded as a mamzer, a person of questionable parentage, by members of his village and community.

Joseph married Mary after Jesus was born. Jesus had 4 half-brothers and 2 half-sisters. Since Joseph is thought to have been much older than Mary, and since very little is heard about Joseph after the birth of Jesus, he is assumed to have died early. As per Jewish custom his brother Clophas married Mary and is believed to have fathered his half-siblings.

When he was born, Jesus was named Yeshua (Joshua) ben Yoseph, Jesus son of Joseph. When the Greeks translated his name, it became Jesus and it stuck. He was regarded as the messiah, meaning the anointed one. Since the Greek word used for the oil used for anointment was khrisma and the person anointed khristos, Yeshua ben Yoseph became Jesus Christ!

As a Jew, Jesus was circumcised; he observed the Passover, read the Bible in Hebrew, and kept Saturday as the Sabbath day.

He joined a messianic movement begun by his relative John the Baptizer, whom he regarded as his teacher and as a great prophet.  John and Jesus together filled the roles of the two Messiahs who were expected at the time, John as a priestly descendant of Aaron and Jesus as a royal descendant of David. Together they preached the coming of the Kingdom of God.  Theirs was an apocalyptic movement that expected God to establish his kingdom on earth, as described by the prophets. John and Jesus preached adherence to the Torah, or the Jewish Law.

Like all Jews of the time, Jesus was expected to marry and produce children. There are hints in the gospels as well as other sources that he married Mary Magdalene.

He was charged before Pilate of sedition amounting to treason of claiming to be ‘the king of the Jews’ for which he was condemned to death. 

There are those who say that he survived death; some say by feigning; others say he fell into a comatose state from which he recovered; still others say that he plotted the whole thing – having himself drugged to escape death.

Most accept that he died.

Did Jesus rise from the dead?

No human who actually died has ever come back to life. 

However, the cornerstone of Christian faith is the resurrection of Jesus. So how did this belief come about?

To understand this, one needs to briefly talk about the gospels.

Gospel means ‘good news’.

Gospels are the 4 biographies of Jesus written by his biographers Mark, Mathew, Luke and John called ‘evangelists’ meaning ‘bringing good news’. Their true identities have not been discovered so far.

The first 3 gospels of Mark, Mathew and Luke are similar; hence they are called ‘synoptic’ (meaning ‘with one eye’) gospels.

Gospel of John is quite different.

Approximate times the gospels were written:

Mark      – A.D. 70

Mathew – A.D. 80

Luke        - A.D. 90 (The only gentile, the rest being Jews)

John        - A.D. 100

Mark, a diehard fan of Paul, was written around 70 A.D. a few years after Paul’s death. It contains the messages that Paul preached projected backwards into the life of Jesus. E.g. he has copied more or less verbatim what Paul wrote about turning bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at the last supper.

Mathew and Luke base their narratives on Mark.

According to Tabor, the original manuscripts of the gospel of Mark, ending at 16:8 says nothing about Jesus rising from the dead. It appears some pious scribes (people who makes copies of the bible) made up the versus 9-20 sometime in the 4^th century reflecting the various appearances of Jesus to different people after his resurrection.

Paul, it seems, was the one who made up the stories of Jesus rising from the dead. In a letter he wrote to the Corinthians around 54 A.D. he claims to have received this information about the resurrection of Jesus through a ‘vision’. The gospels of Mathew, Luke and John were written between 40 to 70 years after Jesus'  death and in the meantime, Paul’s stories of Jesus’ resurrection had become the cornerstone of the Christian faith.